What's the easiest way to match exactly zero or one expressions within,
say, MatchQ[ ]?
For example: call any expression expr a well-formed foo when and only
when (1) the head of expr equals foo; (2) the first element of expr is
either 0 or 1 bar expressions; (3) the last element of expr is an
integer. Then neither the predicate ...
FooQ[expr_] := MatchQ[expr, foo[_bar, _Integer]]
... nor ...
FooQ[expr_] := MatchQ[expr, foo[__bar, _Integer]]
... nor ...
FooQ[expr_] := MatchQ[expr, foo[___bar, _Integer]]
... accurately capture the definition of foo.
For string-matching there's the ? operator; but what's the best
approach for expression-matching?
(FWIW Gavin Scott posed this question in December 2000, but I couldn't
find an answer in the thread.)
Trevor.